Alumni News

The Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is the only maternity referral hospital in that West African country. It does not take patients who screen positive for Ebola. Sierra Leone also is short on physicians, with just one obstetrician in the country during the Ebola epidemic.
Theresa Cullen, MD, a Tucson family doctor...

As a child and adult psychiatrist with the Yale School of Medicine Child Study Center in New Haven, Dorothy Stubbe, MD, understands the importance of paying attention to one’s feelings.
That may explain, at least partly, her decision to attend this year’s reunion.
“I got very nostalgic for my old classmates and the University of Arizona, and I...

The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson has received a record 6,457 applications for enrollment in the Class of 2020.
The number of applications is a 13.9 percent increase over the 5,667 applications the College received for admission to the Class of 2019. And it’s more than two and a half times the 2,500 applications the college...

For the first time in almost 50 years, every member of the class of 2019 was welcomed into the medical world with a gift of a stethoscope and white coat from our generous COM alumni. These important gifts send our new students a powerful message: The UA College of Medicine alumni will support them, have confidence in them, and wish them well on...

STEVE ROTHOLTZ, MD, Class of 1989
After 18 years in private OB/GYN practice I’ve joined the University of Colorado School of Medicine faculty. I currently serve as Medical Director; University Obstetrics practice.
TRISTAN DOW, MD, Class of 2003
Life is good in Colorado! Sending the best to all my COM 2003 peeps!
JASON CRAWFORD, MD, MPH, Class of...

Larry Myers, MD, Class of 1975larrymyersor@gmail.comI retired as Medical Director of a CHC in Springfield, Oregon and Cheryl and I live in the coastal hills near Eugene. My main work places are the CHC I’ve worked in since 2004, a Catholic system rural hospital 30 miles south of us and a rural hospital five hours away near the California border...

As the daughter of two university scientists, Chelsea Kidwell was inspired to follow in their footsteps. After graduating with a degree in psychology from Duke University, she enrolled in the UA College of Medicine, where she made the choice to devote her career to neurology. She was named Outstanding Neurology Student of the Year when she...

Is your son or daughter interested in becoming a doctor? Would he or she like to follow in your footsteps, by attending the UA College of Medicine?
Under a College of Medicine policy that took effect three years ago, “legacy” applicants – those who have a sibling, parent or grandparent who graduated from the UA College of Medicine – are guaranteed...

The College of Medicine in Tucson has a long history and bright future in groundbreaking medical research, from the pioneering research that led to FDA approval of the total artificial heart, to non-invasive wearable technology for monitoring health biomarkers.
Our faculty’s innovative work led to an FDA-approved scorpion antivenom, changed the...

Mohab Ibrahim was 17 when he left his native Egypt for Tucson. His two older brothers had already settled here, and he wanted to get his undergraduate degree, then his medical degree from the UA College of Medicine.
It was 1993, eight years after his father died at a very young age. Mohamed Kamal Ibrahim was an internal medicine doctor and...

When she was 5, growing up in New York City, Julia Indik wanted to be an astronaut – something a lot of kids want to be. But over time, her longing for space adventure evolved into a passion for math and physics, and that eventually led her to the UA College of Medicine, where she received her MD in 1996.
Today Dr. Indik is a cardiologist with the...

Vincent Hau ran the 2014 Boston Marathon to celebrate the city’s triumph over the tragic bombings the year before.
At the race, he learned from fellow runners of an organization that compelled him to “run Boston” again this year.
Team With A Vision, which each year competes to raise funds and awareness for the Massachusetts Association for the...

Lacy Manuelito grew up in Fort Defiance on the Navajo Reservation, knowing since she was a little girl that she wanted to be a doctor. The first in her family to graduate from college, she holds a bachelor’s degree in family relations and human development from the University of New Mexico.
Marisela Mariscal, whose heritage is both Hispanic and of...

Greetings, MedCats!
I am pleased to share many exciting COM alumni developments:
White Coat, Stethoscope and Scholarship Drive
Thanks to the generous support of so many of you, every student in the Class of 2019 will receive the gift of a white coat and stethoscope! In addition, COM alumni and faculty have given more than $20,000 for student...

Greetings, Alumni and Friends,
We have passed the 90-day mark of our partnership with Banner Health, and it’s really been an extraordinary 90 days. The first thing we’ve been able to do is to show it’s possible to have an evolving and synergistic partnership between a large not-for-profit health-care system and an academic institution.
The...

April 2015Joel Kunkel, MD, Class of 1972jwklerkim@earthlink.netLife has been good to the Kunkels. We were married in 1964 in Arizona and returned to Tucson in 2014 to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. I’m retired from the Emergency Department, after 32 years, but still work eight hours a week at Med Now PC, a walk-in clinic (aka Doc in the...

Greetings, Alumni and Friends,As you know, this is an extraordinary time for the UA College of Medicine. It’s also an extraordinary honor for me to have been appointed interim dean at this time.I want to share a little bit about me, and my thoughts about this College of Medicine and its future.My family and I moved to Tucson last year from Chapel...

The College of Medicine’s 34th Match Day found more students going into family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics, with nearly half staying in Arizona. More than a third of the students who will graduate in May from the UA College of Medicine - Tucson matched into residencies in primary care – good news at a time when Arizona and the...

When Rajni Gunnala was growing up, her family spent summer vacations in India, her parents’ native country. As a result, young Rajni, who grew up in the U.S., developed an increasing awareness of “the gross social and health disparities in the world, which helped me to nurture a global perspective from early childhood on.”
It’s a perspective, and...

More than 200 people attended this year’s College of Medicine Founding and Early Faculty Dinner, March 10 at Tucson Country Club. It couldn’t have been a prettier evening, with temperatures in the high 70s, a gorgeous Tucson sunset and the Santa Catalina Mountains darkening in the background.
The dinner got rave reviews. Faculty enjoyed comparing...